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Wiz Khalifa & Danny McBride: Burn After Reading (Cover Story)

So what if Danny McBride and Wiz Khalifa weren’t expected to succeed? They’re still blazing a trail. More fire, more fire, more fire!

Historically speaking, Pittsburgh is to hip-hop what North Carolina is to filmmaking: somewhere between an anomaly and a footnote. Or at least that was the case before the world was introduced to Wiz Khalifa and Danny McBride. Over the past five years, both men have created an indelible image in the minds of their fans—one as a laid-back cat with quiet charisma to spare, the other as an outsize presence with outsize appetites who would outright steal any scene you were unfortunate enough to be acting alongside him in. And both of their careers seemingly hit critical mass last year. 2010 brought Wiz a monstrous mixtape in Kush & Orange Juice, a new label in Atlantic, and a new fanbase in the Pittsburgh Steelers, who made his No. 1 hit, "Black and Yellow," the team’s anthem during the NFL playoffs. For Danny, last year meant a second season as Kenny Powers on the hugely popular HBO show Eastbound & Down.

Despite the recent milestones, though, it’s only now that both are introducing themselves to the public at large for the first time. Danny’s first starring role in a big-budget movie comes courtesy of Your Highness, a fittingly McBride-esque take (he co-wrote it, after all) on the swords-and-sorcery fantasy movies of the 1980s. Meanwhile, Wiz is going all in with his major-label debut, Rolling Papers. Cult followings are well and good, but no one wants to see their career go up in a puff of smoke. Only time will tell how the mainstream embraces two men who came out of nowhere and built movements on their own terms. In the meantime, we’ll be waiting to exhale.

So who’s the bigger hero on college campuses?

D: I’m gonna give it up to Wiz.

W: Nah, I’m gonna give it up to Danny, big time.

When was the last time you were on a college campus?

D: Actually, a few days ago—my younger sister’s in college.

Was it pandemonium?

D: Yeah, it was nuts. Then the uprising in Egypt started. I’m not gonna say it was connected, but sometimes you have to shut off the Internet and squash those rumors.

W: This dude is way more of a fuckin’ big man on campus than me. I just show up to rap, you know what I’m sayin’?

Yeah, but it won’t be long until you’re being asked to give the graduation speech. What would you say to a group of college kids?

W: Like, to motivate them? Honestly, I would tell them that weed isn’t as bad as everyone tries to make it seem.

W: Yeah, it’s medicinal in places and shit. But, I just want ’em to know it’s not that bad, ’cause there’s a lot of kids that smoke in college. Don’t feel bad. Hide it. Don’t get in trouble. Find the places to hide it. That’s important—hiding it. That’s part of the game.

What’s the good stash spot people don’t know about?

W: Shit, you got any good stash spots?

D: I kinda do it old-school—I just keep it stuffed up my asshole a lot of times. Even if I’m not traveling, just when I’m alone in my house, I’ll act like I’m coming outta Panama.

Anything else in there? Spare keys?

D: Nope. I save it for the chronic, that’s it.

Is there a type of weed that fits more snugly in the anal cavity?

D: Oh no, they all fit in equally.

W: The less stems, the better.

D: Yeah, we don’t like that seedy shit.Both of you have built either a character or an image based on indulgence, whether it’s weed, or other vices. Do people make assumptions of who the real Danny is as a person? Or the real Cameron Thomaz as a person?

W: Damn, You know my name! That’s cool. Nah, I’m really just high all the time, so like... yeah. What about you?

D: I get offered a lot of shots, a lot of joints. It’s a good thing. When you roll into a town and you don’t have money to buy alcohol, you know that you can always go to a high school or a college campus and somebody’s down to hook you up. [Laughs.]

W: Yeah, they really do want to hook you up for free.

D: That’s the benefit of celebrity. That’s really what it’s all about.

W: Being a celebrity that people know what you like, that shit’s cool. People throw joints at me all the time.

D: I get a lot of chicken wings thrown at me.

In anger?

D: No, they just know I like chicken.

Let’s talk about Your Highness. People assumed it’d just be a stoner movie, but you guys took ’80s fantasy movies—Clash of the Titans, Labyrinth—and made a ridiculous comedy out of ‘em.

D: As a kid, this was the shit that I always gravitated towards: Conan, Beastmaster. It’s the stuff that got me into movies in the first place, and so there’s definitely a deep love for the genre. There are things that don’t age well [too], but there was room to find humor without just blasting the genre.

The way you guys work and the way Judd Apatow and his crew work, improvising and ad-libbing has changed the way comedy movies get made. Has it changed the writing process for you guys to the point where you might just leave dialogue a little looser and figure the real jewels are going to come on set?

D: Oh, we definitely do. David [Gordon Green] and Jody [Hill]—these guys I frequently collaborate with—in the writing process, we pay the most attention to the structures and the characters, and all that stuff adds up. If you can be confident that the story adds up to something at the end of the day, then I think it gives you the confidence to really be able to push the dialogue with improv. It’s not like you’re trying to compensate for shit in the improv—you’re just trying to expand upon what’s there.

Wiz, what are your movie tastes like?

W: [Laughs.] What do movies taste like?

[Laughs.] Nah, what are your movie tastes like?

W: Spicy.

D: Garlic, yeah. Tandoori chicken.

W: Room temperature. What type of movies do I like? Funny movies, of course, because I like to smoke, and when you smoke, things become less serious and you find the funny in things. So, even movies that aren’t funny, they end up turning into comedies to me.

So what makes a good stoner movie?

D: You gotta start with the basics. You probably need marijuana.

W: Probably would start there. Just to get it started.

In the creation of the movie or as a plot point?

D: Either/or. At some point there needs to be marijuana.

W: Whether it’s a reference or it’s actually shown, you just have to know it's marijuana. I like movies where people smoke joints. Gotta have joints and doobs. I don’t smoke blunts.

D: Somebody always needs to cough at least once—

W: I was just about to say that.

D: Like the kind that [makes retching noise] almost turns into vomit.

W: That’s what I was about to say! It’d be tight if somebody just puked off weed one time.

W: My morning routine? Literally the first thing I do is smoke. That’s not even to sound cool or anything, I just have to be high first thing in the morning. So, I wake up. I smoke. I get on the Internet. I check all the rumors and shit.

Rumors about you?

W: About anything. Before there were any rumors about me I always checked everything. I look at all that crap, and then I get something to eat. Do regular stuff. Feed my dog.

D: I like to play it easy in the mornings. I usually start the day off with a 10, 12-mile run. I like to write sonnets every day, that’s just something weird about me. Knock two of those out after the run. Eat a steak. Start a charity.

What are the downsides of becoming a more visible person and being successful?

D: It's flattering whenever you meet people that like what you’re doing. That’s always a cool feeling. But you’re not always in the mood to have to meet people. You just wanna go out and be low-profile, and then you end up with some dude that looks like me who’s trying to take a picture of you.

Do you ever resent having to turn it on?

D: I always turn it on by being respectful to people and being nice to ’em, but I won’t slip into a character or anything.

W: There’s not really a downside, it just comes with the game. Like you said, you could be pumping your gas and somebody runs up on you and wants a picture or an autograph. And you might not feel like doing it at that point, but you know you gotta turn it on—and if you don’t, you’re an asshole.

Danny, you just got married last year. How is it balancing a long-term relationship with newfound fame? Especially now that you’re able to do a lot of the projects you’ve always wanted to do. That’s the kind of thing that takes you away from home for long periods of time.

D: You just gotta make the most of when you have downtime. Once we finished Eastbound last year, I got married and split, and I’ve been hiding out and hibernating in Virginia for the last two months.

No paparazzi came to Virginia looking for you?

D: No, just mobsters.

W: That dude that you owe money to for that fuckin’ coke.

D: Frank? Yeah, I owe him 10 bucks for coke. He just won’t let it go.

W: They came to see me about him.

D: That’s when it gets kinda awkward—but Wiz, you didn’t rat me out. Which is cool.

W: Nah, I didn’t snitch. I’m definitely not a snitch.

D: And, if I do get caught by him, I will definitely not tell him that you knew where I was.

W: Well, Frank’s got a threat out on my knees.

D: He does not respect the knees at all.

W:That’s what he specializes in. He told me when he came to see me. Don’t get coke from Frank.

D: Yeah, he’s kind of a little bitch to deal with.

Coke debts aside, you guys both seem very laid-back—when was the last time you got really upset?

D: Like, as a grown-up?

W: I got upset because we didn’t have the cereal that I wanted in my house. I wanted some Cap’n Crunch but there was only Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Fruity Pebbles and I didn’t like the choices. I had to have the Cap’n and it wasn’t there. That’s the last time I got pissed.